The storage battery is, in my opinion, a catchpenny, a sensation, a mechanism for swindling the public by stocking companies … Edison’s view on storage batteries in 1883
Edison’s view on storage batteries in 1883
“What is the maximum of a storage battery?”
“It is about 50 per cent. You get the maximum of current when you utilise the full capacity of the battery, the same as in a steam engine, where, if steam is admitted for the full stroke, 50 per cent, of the steam or power is wasted, but you obtain the maximum power from the engine; but this is also the minimum of economy. Hence, to get the proper economy, engine builders only take onethird to one-fourth of the maximum power from their engines, but this adds to the investment, which is compensensated for by the saving in economy, which more than pays interest on increased investment.
When they say that 90 per cent, is obtained from the battery they tell you what is scientifically true. They say they get 10 lights of 16 candles each per horse-power of current from a battery. Now that is true, and it is not true. If you get a horse-power of current from a battery it will give you 10 lights of 16 candles; but to get that you have to net all losses through the battery, through the wires, through the dynamo, and all that.(4) They start off with a horse-power indicated in the engine. A certain amount of this is taken to move the engine and dynamo, and a certain amount is lost in the dynamo to convert power into electricity, because no machine is perfect; a certain amount must be lost on the wire connecting the station with the secondary battery; another amount is lost in charging the battery, due to its resistance and imperfection as a mechanism; another amount is lost during the interim between charging and use; another portion will be lost in discharging the battery through the lamps, and still another amount will be lost in the wire connecting the battery to the lamp. So that your horsepower will dwindle down until it will give you only about three lamps; whereas, if you worked direct you would probably get six lamps.”
“You are hard on the battery folks.”
“The reason I am down on these people is because I have a legitimate thing, and there is a loss of public confidence in it through their operations. We have never yet asked the public for money. Now, I don’t want the people swindled, for I want our company to make money out of electric lighting in a legitimate way, by giving value for what is received, and, if it sells rights, to first prove to the purchasers their value by results, obtained in actual practice upon a large commercial scale, as is now being done, and the exposure of such things would make it much easier and better for me to advance my system on its true merits. The same swindle which it is designed to perpetrate upon the people of this country has already been carried out in England, and as a result people there have lost all confidence in electric lighting. The same people are here. We have entered suits against them in England, France, and other countries, and will sue them here. But these people know well that it will take some time to get a suit decided, and by that time they will have permitted the public to invest heavily.”
“Then you consider storage batteries wholly impracticable. Is there no hope for their doing good, legitimate work?”
“None whatever. Except in a very limited number of cases, storage of gas could be made analogous to storage of electricity. One of the principal outlays of a gas company is for pipes. The average diameter of their mains is five or six inches. But, under pressure greater than they now force the gas through their mains, an inch pipe would answer under the storage principle of having a small gasometer in every house. The difference saved to the company by this arrangement would be about 15dols. for pipes from house to house, 20 to 30 feet apart. But the gasometer would cost a great deal more in each house than the 25ft. of pipe buried in the street. Besides, gasometers might not be just the thing in the hands of the public; there might be explosions; some of them might not have the room. The gasometer would require some little mechanism to reduce the pressure down to a limit where it could be burnt. Now, these little mechanisms are uncertain. The general intelligence of the public, when applied to mechanism, is also uncertain; and this has probably prevented gas engineers from introducing a system of local storage. The Electric Arc Company, which is seeking to introduce a system of storage, follow out the above idea exactly. Instead of using large conductors and low pressure electricity, as I do, they propose to save on the investment by using small conductors and high pressure electricity; and, to make this kind of electricity available, they reduce its pressure by means of a storage battery in the same way as high pressure gas in a small main could be stored in a gasometer and its pressure reduced to make it available. In the first place, the high pressure current is very dangerous to life. The depreciation on storage batteries alone, in a system of general distribution, would pay the interest on the extra copper sufficient to dispense with their use; and, second, if these small wires, carrying high pressure currents, were to be placed underground, as all systems must be to be financially permanent in large cities, the extra cost of the insulation necessary to prevent the leakage of the currents of so powerful a pressure would more than pay for the extra copper used in a system which carry low pressure currents and do not require so expensive nor so great an amount of insulation. The cost of our mains is about 15dols. from house to house. Those mains are two feet underground, where the intellectual portion of the public cannot reach it to improve it, while with storage batteries, from 75dole. to 200dols. worth of batteries would be placed in each house to save about Idols. in copper and interpose an uncertain device in which 50 per cent, of the article to be sold is lost.” Mr. Edison here paused a moment, held down his head, and, quickly raising it again, said, in his quaint way, “Just as soon as a man gets working on the secondary battery it brings out his latent capacity for lying.”
“But suppose power was cheap, such as a water power, would it not pay to store electricity even at a great sacrifice of energy?”
“In utilising water power, even where the cost of water is, say nearly nothing, there is still the cost of plant for storing to be considered, and interest and depreciation added. Where is the use of this outlay when, in nearly every case, by connecting the dynamo direct with the turbine vou can get the same result